December 2, 2010 in Recipes · No comments

Well, November was over before I knew it, and I didn’t post a recipe even though I had promised to post one. On the upside, I’ve waited so long that we’re now in the middle of Hanukkah (in the early days of Hanukkah, to be more precise), which means the recipe that I was going to post is even more appropriate now than it would have been in November.

Hanukkah celebrates a miracle that happened with olive oil, and tradition therefore calls for making foods that are fried in oil for this holiday. The two most common Hanukkah dishes are potato pancakes (also know as latkes) in the Ashkenazi Jewish culture and donuts in the Sephardic culture.

I have yet to try my hand at making donuts, unless you count that one time when my sister and I were maybe about 10 and 7 years old, respectively, and we decided to make donuts based on a recipe from the “American cuisine” section of my mom’s international cookbook (produced in East Germany and translated into Russian). It must have been a recipe for baked, cake-like donuts, because I remember that we baked our goodies rather than frying them. We followed the recipe carefully and painstakingly measured out every ingredient – except the baking soda, which we somehow managed to omit entirely. The finished product, according to my dad, resembled ceramic tiles, both in flatness and in hardness. He deposited the unfortunate results of our kitchen adventures in his office lunchroom, where his colleagues miraculously avoided breaking any teeth while munching on them during their tea breaks (maybe they soaked the “donuts” in the tea).

On the other hand, I’ve been making potato pancakes for Hanukkah for many years, and this year they turned out particularly crispy and tasty. However, I’m not going to give you a latkes recipe, because I improvised and didn’t write down my measurements, and because there are tons of good latkes recipes on the web, including these two.

What I’m going to do instead is post my recipe for cabbage pancakes, aka cabbage croquettes, cabbage patties, or cabbage fritters (in Russian, they are known as “kapustnye kotlety,” which would literally translate as “cabbage cutlets”). The idea is the same as potato latkes – shred the raw vegetable (in the case of cabbage, you can shred or finely chop), bind it with eggs and flour, add seasonings and, optionally, some shredded onions, drop by the spoonful into hot oil, and fry on both sides. These tasty little pancakes make a great substitute for the traditional potato latkes and come with the added benefit of more vitamin C and fewer carbs. Enjoy them for Hannukah or year-round!

Cabbage pancakes

Ingredients

1 small cabbage

2 eggs

3-4 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Salt and pepper to taste

Oil for frying

Optional: 1/2 medium onion, a few sprigs of parsley

Preparation

Clean and trim the cabbage. Chop finely or shred in the food processor. If using onion, chop finely or shred and add to the cabbage. If using parsley, chop finely and add to the cabbage or cabbage/onion mixture. Add eggs and mix well. Add flour, salt, and pepper, and mix well. Heat oil in a skillet on medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, drop cabbage batter into the skillet in heaping tablespoonfuls. Using your spoon or a spatula, flatten each pancake and fix the shape if needed. Reduce heat to medium, cover and let cook about 2 minutes, checking after 45-60 seconds to make sure the pancakes are not burning. When they are nicely browned, flip them with a spatula, cover and cook another minute or two until the second side is browned. Repeat the process with the remaining batter. You can drain the pancakes on paper towels to soak up excess oil.

Cabbage pancakes are traditionally served warm, topped with sour cream. We also enjoy them with plain yogurt and salsa or hot sauce. Yogurt or sour cream mixed with chopped fresh herbs and/or minced garlic might also be nice… Leftovers are good warm or cold.

Serves 2-3 as a main course or 3-4 as a snack/appetizer/side

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